Scariest sports performances of all time

In 1916, Cumberland College of Pennsylvania defeated Georgia Tech 22-0 in a baseball game, angering Tech’s baseball coach, John Heisman. Though Cumberland discontinued its football program before the season, Heisman — who also coached the football team — refused to let Cumberland cancel. He wanted revenge. What followed was the worst slaughter in college football history. Georgia Tech scored a touchdown on its first offensive play and then scored a TD on Cumberland’s next offensive play, returning a fumble for a TD. Cumberland immediately fumbled again, and by the end of the quarter, it was 63-0. In the second quarter, Tech scored 63 more points. At halftime, Cumberland’s coach begged Heisman to shorten the game, and he relented: They’d cut each quarter by three minutes. The game ended 222-0, a cruel mirror to the baseball defeat. The U.S. would enter World War I the next year, and Cumberland players would call it “not nearly as brutal as that Georgia Tech game.”

There’s been plenty of terrifying walkers in baseball history. Jose Mesa issued two walk-off walks in a single series with the Mets during his brief stint with the Giants. In the 1999 NLCS, Kenny Rogers intentionally walked the bases loaded, then walked in the series-winning run against the relentless Braves. But the most fearsome Walker was Bill Bevens, who walked a World Series-record 10 batters in the 1947 World Series while throwing a no-hitter for 8 ⅔ innings. The Dodgers trailed 2-1 going into the ninth when Bevens intentionally walked a concussed-but-pinch-hitting Pete Reiser — who says a head shot always stops a zombie? Veteran Cookie Lavagetto doubled off the wall to break up the no-no and win the game. Bevens would stagger out to the mound to relieve the battered starter in the Yankees’ Game 7 win, but neither he or Lavagetto played another game after that.

It’s important to note that Darrell Griffith, noted rim-rattler from Louisville, was Dr. Dunkenstein. His jams were Dunkenstein’s monsters. In 1980, Dunkenstein rampaged through the NCAA Tournament, averaging 23 points, five rebounds, five assists and 27 terrified villagers per game. Even UCLA’s vaunted “flaming torches” defense couldn’t stop him from pouring in 23 points in the championship, earning Most Outstanding Player honors. Louisville won its first basketball title, and Griffith was drafted No. 2 overall behind Joe Barry Carroll. Dunkenstein might have been made out of reassembled corpses, but Carroll was the real stiff.

British boxer Tony Wilson was a light heavyweight who fought in the 1984 Olympics, but he’ll always be remembered better for his mummy, Minna Wilson. He was fighting Steve McCarthy in 1989 and getting the worst of it. McCarthy had knocked him down and had him on the ropes. Suddenly Wilson’s 62-year-old mother burst into the ring and began beating McCarthy with her shoe. Officials had to drag her from the ring by her hair, but when McCarthy refused to return to the ring, Wilson was declared the winner. Seems unfair, as McCarthy was getting stitches for his wound, but that’s just the mummy’s curse.

Clint Malarchuk was playing goalie for the Buffalo Sabres in March 1989 when a collision in front of the goal led to a terrifying freak injury. Uwe Krupp of the Sabres and Steve Tuttle of the St, Louis Blues crashed into the goal crease, and in the collision, Tuttle’s skate caught Malarchuk in the throat. It severed his carotid artery and severely injured his jugular vein. Blood gushed out of his wound onto the ice — one-and-a-half liters — and horrified spectators fainted. Some had heart attacks. At least three players vomited on the ice because of the gore. Somehow, Malarchuk skated off the ice himself, with trainer Jim Pizzutelli pinching the wound shut. After 300 stitches, Malarchuk survived — and was back on the ice 10 days later.

The 1990-91 UNLV Running Rebels were a perfect 34-0 and the defending NCAA champs. But when they met up with Bobby Hurley and Grant Hill in the national semifinals, UNLV was forced to confront the darkness within itself and face a terrible monster: coach Mike Krzyzewski. The game was a hard-fought struggle throughout, but UNLV became unnerved when Greg Anthony fouled out. The Rebels tied the game in the final seconds but were forced to watch a horrific scene: Christian Laettner shooting free throws. The Baba Duke grew stronger, won the title and has been tormenting us ever since.

One of the most popular Halloween costumes for kids is “cowboy,” probably because of Emmitt Smith’s performance on Halloween in 1993 against the Eagles. He rushed for 237 yards on 30 carries with a touchdown, haunting Philadelphia defenders as he slipped from their grasps like a ghost. That rushing effort was a full two-thirds of the team’s offensive output, as Troy Aikman brought a limp arm to a gunfight, throwing for only 96 yards. Smith would go on to lasso the NFL MVP award as the Cowboys won their second straight Super Bowl. Yee-ha!

Warren Moon and the Houston Oilers played the Buffalo Bills on Jan. 3, 1993, in a postseason clash and jumped out to a 28-3 halftime lead. Then the third quarter began with them running back an interception for a touchdown. The Oilers had a 32-point lead with just over 28 minutes to go, and Buffalo was without injured QB Jim Kelly and RB Thurman Thomas. But a 10-play drive made it 35-10, and after the kicker recovered his own onside kick, Buffalo cut it to 35-17. Gone was the smooth, competent Houston offense of the first half. In its place, a horrific doppelganger — a sputtering nightmare full of fumbles, botched snaps and inaccurate passes — took over. Even the punter was shanking kicks and bobbling field goal holds. With 3:03 left in the fourth quarter, Buffalo took the lead, 38-35. Moon regained himself, rallying the Oilers to tie the game, but Mr. Hyde re-emerged in overtime. Buffalo intercepted Moon’s third pass of OT, and a short field goal completed the greatest comeback in NFL history and mercifully snuffed out the Oilers’ playoff life.

The “Clock” play happened during a Jets-Dolphins game in 1994. Trailing 24-21, the Dolphins intercepted Boomer Esiason and drove the ball down to the 8-yard-line. They only had one timeout, so when Marino hurried to the line, yelled “Clock! Clock!” and motioned for a spike, the defense relaxed. That’s when Marino found a wide-open Mark Ingram in the end zone for the game-winning touchdown. The Dolphins went on to win the division, and after the season Jets coach Pete Carroll found a pink slip in his bag of candy.

With the Diamondbacks holding a 2-1 World Series lead over the Yankees on Halloween night in 2001, Arizona manager Bob Brenly replaced Curt Schilling with Byung-Hyun Kim. Hoping for a two-inning save. Kim got five of the six outs he needed, but with Paul O’Neill on first, Tino Martinez went deep to tie the game. Inexplicably, Brenly left Kim on the mound for a third inning, as thousands of D-backs fans screamed, “Don’t go in there!” at their TV sets. Kim got two outs, but just as the calendar turned to Nov. 1, Derek Jeter went deep to win the game. Despite his three innings the night before, Brenly brought in his closer again in Game 5, when Scott Brosius finally put the zombie-armed Kim out of his misery with a game-tying homer.

The full moon may have been 10 days earlier, but on Aug. 11, 2004, Randy Wolf turned into a monster against the Rockies. In his first at-bat, the Phillies lefty took Jason Jennings deep, and in his second at-bat, he singled and scored on a home run. When he came up a third time with a man on first, the Wolf Man smelled blood. He went deep again off Adam Bernero, finishing with three runs, three hits and three RBI on the day, before a crowd of torch-wielding Rockies fans convinced Larry Bowa to pull Wolf from the game.

Freddy Garcia was traded to the White Sox in 2004, even though the team plays 6.9 miles away from Elm Street in Chicago. In 2005, his control disappeared, leading the league with 20 wild pitches. Yes, Freddy was wild — and dangerous. He put it together in the postseason, however, pitching a complete game to beat the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Look, Angels are no match for Freddy. The White Sox handed him the ball for Game 4 of the World Series, and Freddy came through again, dispatching Astros hitters with his slider, two-seam fastball, and a variety of knives and hunting equipment in seven shutout innings. The Astros’ title hopes remained a dream, and the only Houston player to hit the ball hard off of Freddy was Jason (Lane).

In advance of the 2006 Rose Bowl, pundits were calling USC the greatest college football team of all time. The Trojans won 34 straight games, they had two Heisman Trophy winners in Reggie Bush and Matt Leinart, and they’d won two straight national championships. But they’d never run into a buzz saw like Texas QB Vince Young. He slashed through the vaunted Trojan defense, attacking the secondary with his arm and legs, while his leather-faced coach, Mack Brown, watched from the sidelines. As the fourth quarter was ending, USC tried to bleed out the clock, but LenDale White was denied on a fourth-down rush and failed to move the chains. USC may have thought the Longhorns were dead, but Young drove his team down the field, and on a 4th-and-5 at the 9, he ran in for a touchdown that murdered USC’s repeat title hopes.

In his second post-Shaq year, Kobe Bryant had rallied the Lakers to a 3-1 first-round series lead over the Phoenix Suns. And while the Lakers lost a closeout game in OT to drop Game 6 at home, in which the Black Mamba went for 50 points, they still had a chance to pull the upset. However, once the Suns took a halftime lead in Game 7, the Mamba disappeared! Kobe Bean played like he was snakebit, taking only three shots in the whole second half — the number he’d normally take in three possessions. The Suns went on to win by 31, and the Lakers blew a 3-1 lead. Kobe would lose to the Suns again in 2007 before the Lakers magically turned Kwame Brown into Pau Gasol, and the Mamba returned to glory.

The 2007 New England Patriots were 18-0 on the season and 14-point favorites in the Super Bowl. Meanwhile, the New York Giants were 10-6, the No. 5 seed and hadn’t had home-field advantage in a single playoff game. But then, things got freaky. The Giants kept the Patriots’ offense off the field with a 10-minute opening field goal drive. The Patriots scored a touchdown in the second, but the New York defense held them scoreless again in the third. All the while, MVP Tom Brady kept getting sacked, fumbling at the end of the first half while approaching field goal range. The freakiest moment occurred when Eli Manning escaped three rushing Patriots on 3rd-and-5, completing a 32-yard pass that David Tyree completed by pinning the ball to his helmet. The Giants scored the go-ahead TD with 35 seconds left, the Pats didn’t gain another yard and boxes upon boxes of “19-0” T-shirts were shipped off to developing nations.

With seconds remaining in the first quarter of a Kings-Spurs game in San Antonio, Count Dracula attempted to disrupt the game, flying onto the court in the form of a bat. Spurs guard Manu Ginobili was not fooled by the disguise, smacking down Dracula like he was a James Harden buzzer-beater. Much like defenders when Ginobili drove the lane, the bat may have been confused by Manu’s lefty hook. Bat-Manu handed off the bat to stadium personnel, who presumably drove a stake through its heart — or had Tony Parker drop a dagger three in front of him. Ginobili got a rabies shot after the game, plus a garlic necklace and a silver crucifix.

If you’ve seen "The Shining," you know there’s nothing scarier than a pair of preternaturally calm kids. This was true for the Rangers in the 2010 World Series, when two rookies led the Giants to a Game 4 victory on Halloween night. Madison Bumgarner threw eight shutout innings, while batterymate Buster Posey hit a solo home run. It was the first pitcher-catcher rookie pair to start a World Series game since 1947, and the two would go on to haunt opponents in October in 2012 and 2014 as well.

In their first playoff appearance since moving to D.C., and indeed their first as a franchise since the Expos lost the 1981 NLCS, the Nationals were tormented by relentless birds — Redbirds, that is. The St. Louis Cardinals took a 2-1 lead in the Division Series, but Jayson Werth hit a walk-off homer in Game 4 to tie up the series. The Nationals led 6-5 going into the eighth and even added an insurance run going into the ninth. Carlos Beltran led off with a double, but Drew Storen retired the next two batters. Then, he started pecking at the strike zone. Yadier Molina walked. Then David Freese. After a single, a stolen base and another single, Storen could only helplessly throw up his arms as the Birds took the game 9-7, and the series. Who finished things up in the ninth? A closer named Jason.

The 6-2 Bengals were in the midst of a dream season when they came to play the 3-4 Dolphins on a Thursday night Halloween special in 2013. However, they didn’t have any answer for Miami defensive end Cameron Wake, who terrorized Andy Dalton the entire game. First, he sacked Dalton, stripped him of the ball and recovered the fumble. Wake sacked Dalton again in the second quarter, pressured him into a pick-six in the third and finally in overtime sacked Dalton in the end zone for the rare game-winning safety. Andy Dalton hasn’t won a playoff game since, probably because he sees Cameron Wake whenever he closes his eyes.

The Wild Card Game on Jan. 10 in Minneapolis was one of the coldest in history, with game-time temperatures of -6 degrees Fahrenheit. Players stood on the sidelines shivering in winter hats, with snot running down their faces. Both teams struggled to score all game, but with Seattle leading 10-9, Minnesota drove all the way to the 9-yard line with 26 seconds left. Kicker Blair Walsh jogged out to attempt the game-winner. Maybe it was the cold, maybe it was the pressure, maybe it was the ghosts of Vikings past haunting the team one final time in their last game before moving to a new stadium. Whatever it was, Walsh badly missed the short field goal, and Seattle won. Vikings fans spent the rest of the postseason standing in the corner facing the wall, refusing to watch the terrible things happening on the TV replay.

There’s nothing scarier than the death of a loved one — especially when it comes out of nowhere. Just before the playoffs started, Isaiah Thomas lost his younger sister to a car accident and decided to take it out on Boston’s playoff opponents. IT defeated the clown-haired Robin Lopez and the Bulls in the first round, but in the second round, the Washington Wizards tried to take the game into the sewer. Kelly Oubre attacked Kelly Olynyk, and Otto Porter knocked one of IT’s teeth out with an elbow. IT kept fighting, scoring 38 points and hitting the game-winner in OT. For the series, he averaged a heroic 35 points and seven assists in a seven-game win. Of course, after the season, the Celtics made the "pennywise" decision to trade him to Cleveland, so we’re obviously looking at a sequel.